OTP Week 2016
by TottWriter
Summary: Wow, I just realised I never posted these. Whoops! Here we have four one-shots each with a different pairing/prompt, from last year's OTP week event. (Friendship - Daisuke/Sora; First Love - Taishiro; Wish You Were Here - Kenkeru; Grief - Taito). Obvious heads up for angst in the latter two, but the first couple are sheer fluff.
1. A Good Game

**A.N.: Okay, so I suddenly realised that I wrote four fics for OTP week last year and never actually posted them here at all? I'm not sure how I missed that one to be honest. But, seeing as I'm in a bit of a posting drought at the moment thanks to other projects, I figured now was as good a time as any to drop them here (and also prove that I didn't fall off the face of the Earth).**

 **There are four one-shots in this collection, each with a different prompt and pairing (because I really can't ever pick an actual OTP). First up we have Platonic/Friendship! I won't lie, I actually picked two names more or less out of a hat for this, because come on. All these kids are friends. Any given two make good friends. So here's a Daisuke/Sora bonding moment, full of fluff and lightheartedness!**

* * *

 **A Good Game**

Daisuke would always consider the summer of 2003 to be among the better ones. School hadn't yet gotten all that hard, the digital world was peaceful, and everyone was still together as a group. All twelve of them, with no worries greater than being home in time for tea, and keeping up with the almost endless appetites of their partners. The days were warm and dry, each one picture perfect and filled with _friends_. Honestly, what more could anyone ask for?

It was another picnic, this time in the digital world, and lunch was a happy, settling memory in Daisuke's stomach. The digimon had gorged themselves so thoroughly that most of them had fallen into a stupor, and the majority of the other Chosen were lazing about on the grass. Mimi looked as though she was actually _asleep_ , but then he reckoned she had to be pretty jetlagged.

Still, the others had no such excuse, and he reckoned he was being pretty fair by waiting half an hour or so before asking if anyone fancied a game. The fact that only Taichi and Ken responded with anything other than a groan was something of a disappointment. It was hardly a game with only the three of them. He'd have turned to Takeru and dragged him over, willing or otherwise, but unfortunately Takeru had an iron-clad excuse: he'd twisted his ankle a few days before and was under doctors' orders to rest. With Jou there, that meant he really _was_ resting.

"How are we gonna do this then?" he said, getting to his feet and grabbing the ball.

Taichi _hrrrm_ ed as he started stretching. "Well…" he said, tailing off with a half shrug.

"Oh, go on then," Sora said after a moment, getting to her feet with a sigh. "I'll even up the teams."

Daisuke blinked as she joined them. He hadn't really gotten to know Sora all that well until the last year, but he was pretty sure she played tennis, not soccer. Still, at least that meant she was more athletic, right? And four people made for an even-ish matchup, so he wasn't about to complain.

"All right," Taichi cried, grinning. Apparently he didn't have any concerns. "How did you wanna do this?"

Sora frowned. "Well, it's been a while…"

* * *

Daisuke wasn't sure how he felt about teaming up with Sora to play. On the one hand, she was three years his senior, and Taichi _had_ been right that usually a match-up of older children against younger ones was unfair, but the fact of it was that even though Ken had lost a fair bit of his edge since last year, he was still a damn good player, and Sora was…well. Even _she_ had admitted to being rusty, and Daisuke had no way of knowing what she'd been like as a player before that.

It wasn't that he disliked Sora. She was great— _all_ of the older Chosen were, really. But this was soccer, and he couldn't deny that he played to win, where possible. Especially when Ken got that competitive glint in his eyes, and reminded him of their on-off rivalry on the sports field.

Then again, when Sora put down her sunglasses and wandered over, he realised that she was actually wearing shorts, and not a skirt for once. And as she turned away from Taichi and Ken, she offered him a conspiratorial wink.

"I'll go easy on you to start with if you like," Taichi was saying, but the moment he put the ball down between them Sora was away, snatching it backwards with the heel of her foot and passing it to Daisuke so fast he almost didn't have time to react. The fact that she stuck her tongue out at Taichi as she stole the ball didn't help.

Scattered laughter broke out from the others—most likely at the expression on Taichi's face as they began to play in earnest. Within moments, Daisuke's worries evaporated. It was _soccer_ , after all, and Sora was a good teammate, reacting quickly to Taichi and Ken, and never trying to hog the ball. They raced back and forth across the field, and what Sora lacked in height over Taichi, she made up for with her ability to duck and weave. Honestly, there were points where it almost looked like she were dancing across the grass.

Daisuke could hear the cheers of the others as they played, and there was something really quite satisfying about the fact that most of them seemed to be rooting for himself and Sora. He grinned, and then crowed with delight as Sora ducked in and intercepted a pass.

The game carried on until they were all worn out, and in the chaos no one had bothered to keep score. Still, he was pretty sure that he and Sora had been the winners…and even if they _weren't_ , he certainly felt like one. Who would have thought that Sora could be that calm, sensible girl so much of the time, and then turn out to be a real demon on the field? It was like there was a whole other side of her he'd never seen before.

She clapped her hand on his shoulder as he staggered back over to the others, grinning.

"Good game," she said. "Its been a while since I played soccer like that. I always forget how much fun it is."

"How come you don't play more?" he asked. It didn't really make sense to him that she _didn't_. There was no way she'd gotten good without playing quite a lot at some point.

She smiled. "Well, I like tennis just as much," she said. "And I don't have enough time for both. Besides, it's always fun letting Taichi think I'm out of practice. We made a good team though. Same again next time? I can't promise they'll underestimate us again, mind."

He looked up at her, and grinned. "Well. If they're not gonna underestimate us, we've just gotta pull out all the stops, yeah?"

* * *

They might not have won all their games that summer, or in the the many which followed it, but when he looked back years later, Daisuke didn't regret staying on Sora's team even once. After all, there really was nothing like a good game with your friends.


	2. A Little Bit Unconventional

**A.N.: Okay, so the prompt for this one was "The First Emotion of Love", which I am maybe stretching _juuuust_ a little bit. But I had to get one of my actual OTPs in here somewhere.**

* * *

 **A Little Bit Unconventional**

Taichi can't remember when he fell in love with Koushiro. It's a little embarrassing, really, especially since it's a question people always seem to want to ask once they know he fell for a childhood friend. And it always seems to happen the same way, too. Every time the subject of relationships comes up—and it does so with almost depressing regularity—there it is. Sandwiched in somewhere between the "That's so sweet" comment (he's pretty sure that there's nothing especially "sweet" about the way he carelessly, almost accidentally stumbled into a relationship after years of just being friends who were more than usually close) and the rather more annoying question about what their partners think about it all (which just goes to show that people really dig deep sometimes to try and find drama, and usually has him saying something like: "That it's great, because there's someone else to pester for food?").

He's gotten used to it, of course, and always deflects the "when" question with the same smile and shrug, and off-hand comment about how it was just this gradual thing, you know? No big deal, not a major issue, and _certainly_ not something he keeps himself awake at night over sometimes, trying to pinpoint because, god dammit, this is a thing he should _know_.

Mostly, though, he doesn't mind. After all, Koushiro certainly doesn't, and generally he tends to think that Koushiro's opinion is the only one which actually matters. And the truth of it is, it probably _did_ happen gradually. It seemed to creep up on him without his noticing, somewhere in the background behind the other pressing issues of his teens, normal and otherwise. It's not as though everyone else had to worry about the potential end of the world three times before reaching adulthood. Can a guy be blamed for making that his priority? Honestly, the only thing which matters is that he _did_ work it out. Eventually.

* * *

Koushiro knows exactly when he first knew he was in love with Taichi, because it was the result of a careful decision based on all the available evidence he could find on the internet. Naturally, of course, the emotion was there some time prior to this, but the exact moment he put a name to it was when he looked up the definition of the word and reached the conclusion that, on balance, what he was experiencing was more likely to be love than anything else. However unconventional the circumstances.

The search in question took place one evening a short while after Taichi stopped looking for poor excuses to stay overnight at Koushiro's apartment, and admitted that it was because he preferred it to staying at his own. At that point, Koushiro considered it only fair to be able to put a name to his own feelings. He'd never particularly given the matter much thought before—it wasn't as though it especially changed anything about how they interacted, after all—but he preferred to know where things stood in his own mind.

In the event, it turned out to be quite a while before the information became useful, anyway. Taichi had always been a person consumed by the moment, and their lives had always been rather full of moments to distract them. Even without the digital world, Koushiro always accepted the fact that he would always share Taichi's life with soccer, and his responsibility as a big brother. Adding the digital world and Taichi's sense of duty towards it made for a rather hectic adolescence and young-adulthood. They'd technically been living together for two years before Taichi thought to move the furniture out of his mostly-abandoned apartment and terminate his contract there.

It's not until they've been living together for _three_ years that Taichi thinks to ask why Koushiro has a seemingly unimportant date in September marked on his calendar every year. The look on Taichi's face when he tells him the answer is every bit worth the wait.


	3. Counting Seconds

**A.N.: Okay, so here's where we veer into the mire of things subsequently rendered completely impossible by Tri. When I wrote this, it wasn't entirely clear _when_ the 02 kids had done their vanishing act. Knowing that the digital world hadn't been accessed in over a year, I went one way with the possibilities. Tri itself, naturally, went the other. Still. Either way, this bit of Kenkeru angst was written using the prompt: "I Wish You Were Here."**

* * *

 **Counting Seconds**

It was snowing.

Takeru would always remember the snow that year. Big fat flakes, drifting lazily down through the sky and enveloping the city in an icy, white blanket. He stood by the window, staring out into the world, and watched it fall. Watched as the hard corners began to soften, and the rush and clatter of distant city life slowed. It was quiet.

There were no fireworks yet; those wouldn't start until later, if they even managed to start at _all_ amid the snowfall. Probably they would. There were more than enough people waiting for the display. The news had been filled with excitement and anticipation, and with the reports of the earliest celebrations, already starting in those tiny islands out in the pacific. Outside his room, he could hear the muted sounds of the television. A cheerful presenter and catchy jingle.

It made the silence in his room even louder.

There were no lights on, and no celebrations planned. They'd had a party last year; gathered together as many second generation Chosen Children as they could to send off 2003 in style. To celebrate their victory and to mourn the passing of Oikawa. Half of it had even been spent in the digital world, meeting old friends and making new ones among the children they hadn't gotten to know the year before.

That was last year. Now, no one wanted to remember. No one wanted to celebrate. And although they'd held a memorial for Oikawa earlier that day, it hadn't felt right at all. Mr Hida had been there, with his daughter, both of them standing in Iori's place. Jun had showed up for the Motomiyas, and Momoe for the Inoues. Alone out of all the Tokyo Chosen, Ken's family had been unrepresented. His parents stayed away, too lost in grief to make the trip over to Hikarigaoka. Takeru had found one of Ken's books in his room, weeks before, and in the absence of anything better, packed it in his bag and taken it along. At least there had been _something_ of him there.

It wasn't good enough. It couldn't be good enough—the only thing which would have made it right would have been for _Ken_ to be there, just the same as Iori should have been, and Daisuke, and Miyako. They shouldn't be gone. Shouldn't be missing, _still_. He wanted them back, especially as the snow fell slowly and steadily, and began to settle on roads which would soon be swept clear. This time of year was for family and friends, and without them he felt as though everyone was falling apart. He missed the days when they'd all been together.

But mostly, however selfish he felt admitting it, he missed Ken. Missed his gentle eyes; missed the contour of his nose; missed his mouth, soft and full and slow to smile—but beautiful when it did. Missed the curve of his jaw; missed his hands, slim and elegant. Missed his voice. Missed him so badly it hurt inside.

He'd always loved snow. On that strange, long and short day years before, he'd been delighted by the sudden blizzard which had heralded their adventures. Even on File island, lost and stranded, finding it had been a moment of happiness in an otherwise arduous trek from nowhere to nowhere else. It was cheerful. It was festive. It was damn good _fun_.

Now, though, all he could think of was the snowballs he wouldn't throw at Ken this year. Of the brisk and chilly walk to the station he wouldn't make; not tramping through drifts or hearing it crunch underfoot. Now, the quiet which filled the air was the silence beside him. Empty. Waiting. And achingly cold.

He kept up his vigil, stood in silence by the window as the snow fell deeper and deeper, and the hours rolled by. Finally, when tiredness dragged at his bones, he heard the deep clanging of bells from the television. His mother must have switched it over to the news. Sighing, he turned away from the window, and grabbed his D-Terminal. He returned to his watchpost as the muted sound of bells rang on.

Light filled the sky, followed half a heartbeat later by a deep, rattling _BOOM_. He could see part of the display from his window, and there was no denying that the fireworks were glorious. Even through the snowy night Takeru could hear the cheering. Hear the celebrations on the television. Hear the gentle, unconcerned ticking of the clock on his wall: constant, unchanging, relentless. Second after second making his last moment with Ken further away, with no way of knowing when the next would be. You couldn't do a countdown if you didn't know what day or week or month or _year_ you were counting down to.

Takeru looked down at the device in his hand. It had long since stopped working properly, but the last received message showed on the screen, as it had for months now. He couldn't bring himself to navigate away from it, in case it disappeared altogether.

 _::Looking forward to seeing you tomorrow. I wish you were here already xx::_

"Happy New Year, Ken," he murmured, looking back up at the bright fireworks and ignoring the tears which filled his eyes. "Wherever you are."


	4. The Sound Of Goodbye

**A.N.:So, the final prompt for OTP week last year was "Pain/Grief". I very much went with the latter on this one, but I like to think that this is a fic which takes place when they are all _old_. That's what I had in mind anyway. I hope everyone has enjoyed this little collection, and with any luck in the next couple of weeks I'll be able to get back to actually continuing my digimon fics, instead of all my writing energies going on other projects. I can dream, right?**

* * *

 **The Sound Of Goodbye**

They gave my brother a state funeral. Not all of it was public, of course, but for those parts which were, thousands turned out. The roads were awash with flowers and tears. They said no one had ever seen the like. He would have liked that, I suppose. Being unbeaten, I mean. Taichi was never really one for flowers. But he made friends well enough, and over his life he'd won the affections of so many people, even if he had rubbed them up the wrong way sometimes.

I can look at the footage now, though it took me a long time to manage it. I still can't quite believe how many people turned up, thronging the streets as far as the eye could see. I don't think I've ever felt so proud, or so sad.

There's only one bit I can't watch. We all paid our respects, and the Prime Minister gave a lovely speech, really she did. Honouring his life and work, and the sacrifices he made to protect both worlds. And then Yamato stood up, and at first he didn't say anything at all. He didn't need to—he didn't owe the world a speech, not right then. But he did his best, telling us all in broken sentences how important Taichi had been, and how he'd been the glue which held us together. How he'd never given up on anyone, or anything, even when things were at their worst. The footage shows him standing there, not bothering to wipe the tears from his face, and then stepping down from the podium and walking out of shot.

But when the speeches finish, the camera cuts back. Cuts to Yamato, standing at the edge of the gathering, underneath a tree in full bloom and staring out into nowhere. I remember it, of course. We were all stood by him, away from the dignitaries, as he fished in his pocket and pulled out his harmonica, and played us one final tune. I always have to turn it off there. It was the last time he played any instrument at all.

My brother's remains were buried in the digital world, in the end. Yamato was laid next to him, just a few months later. I don't think anyone was surprised. They were a pair, partners in each and every sense of the word. In time I think we'll all join them there. I can't imagine wanting to end up anywhere else, I know that much.

It's funny, in a way. I think deep down Taichi always knew he'd be the first of us to go. He lived life too fast—he did everything too fast—and he told me once that he wasn't afraid to lead us there, too. I know he is, somehow. It's how I made my peace with it all, anyway. How I keep going, day by day. I know I'll see him again, and that's that. And he'll be stood there, with his arm draped lazily around Yamato's shoulder, beckoning us one by one into a brand new adventure.

I can see him now, calling me over. Asking what took me so long. Telling me he's missed me, these last few years. That he's only had Yamato for company, and we all know how god-awful a fate _that_ is. And Yamato thumps him, but he's smiling all the same. They both are.


End file.
